UFT-L Archives
Archiver > UFT > 2000-04 > 0955373042
From: <>
Subject: RE: [UFT] Reinstalling file
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2000 09:24:02 -0400
Dick,
You wrote:
>I advise everyone using UFT to make backups at least after every editing
>session, and never throwing them away. Identify them with a date or
>something, and always include library and support files. And keep some of
>your backups in a very safe place.
I think you are being a bit unrealistic in asking that we do backups after EVERY editing session and NEVER throw them away. If you have normal resources, you can quickly fill them with backups. Backup to your hard disk is fairly fast, but that doesn't protect against a hard disk or major PC failure. Zip drives aren't bad, but are slower, especially through a parallel port. And floppies are way too slow if you need half a dozen or more.
And that would not help if you don't regularly save the library files. To be on the safe side, you should occasionally restore the backup (preferably on a different computer) and actually check that the data is all right. Preview a standard family journal report that covers a large part of your database to be sure nothing major is missing.
My general recommendation on saving your data (not just a genealogy database) is: how likely are you to loose it, and how much are you willing to loose (i.e. how difficult would it be to redo your work)? Keep a variety of backups: regular UFT .sqz files, pkzip your entire UFT or ROOTS directory, backup to hard disk, zip disks, and floppies. Recycle the media as you can afford, and keep some old copies around in case you introduce a data error that you don't notice for many months. The most frequent backups should be to your hard disk, just because it is a lot faster, but if you don't have much free disk space, that can be a problem. When you move to a new computer, keep the old one around, with a copy of your data, at least until you have had a chance to check out most of your data on the new one.
I back up my entire Roots4 directory - programs and all my UFT data (which is still in that directory) - onto a zip disk. I then copy it to another computer and look at my data, without having to do a Windows type install of one of the more up to date (and resource hungry) products. It gives me an extra comfort level knowing I can easily boot up a version of my database no matter what happens to my main computer.
The bottom line is still: keep a number of recent backups, and check that at lease some are usable.
Pierce Reid
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